NextBox CES no-show: perspective on rumours

It’s easy to believe rumours as fact, only to have hopes smashed in that all-important press conference. Patrick Garratt reckons everyone needs to get some perspective over the prospect of next-gen reveals this year.

At the moment, both Xbox 360 and PS3 are in the back-half of their extended cycles, which is exactly where Sony and Microsoft want to keep them for as long as they possibly can. These are the gravy years. The console business’s golden rule? Don’t piss in the gravy.

If you’ve been a follower of games news for more than a generation, you’ve been here before. In fact, this is all old news if you’ve been around for more than a few years. There is nothing more scintillating to specialist journalists and core gamers than new hardware. It’s the beat of the online games news heart, the wind beneath our moulting wings. If you want to see the community – professional and hobbyist alike – truly get its knickers in a twist, watch what happens when a platform-holder births a new console. It’s a thing of terrible beauty.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to forget that the signal to noise ratio of rumour to fact in the case of console reveals is exceptionally high. As difficult as long-term memory comes, it’s especially important to keep your wits about you this year as we enter the generation “danger zone” of new reveals from Sony and Microsoft. We’re already starting to feel the effect in terms of credible rumours.

At the time of writing, the idea that Microsoft will announce its next generation Xbox this year is transitioning from occasional rumour into expected fact. To illustrate just how easily rumours can get sucked up by the internet, the games world watched last night as Microsoft, inevitably, didn’t say a single word about its next-gen plans at CES, despite a solid rumour from Xboxygen sources late last year that the machine would be mentioned in some form at the show.

This comes in the same week as MCV boldly predicted, based on details from “third-party publishing sources,” that “both the Xbox 360 successor and a follow up to the PS3 will be shown at E3 2012.”

These stories are the latest in a string of light rumours in 2011 about the next console generation, some of which even claimed the next Xbox would release in 2012. We’ve already said why the idea of Microsoft shipping another machine this year is simply silly, but it’s important at this point to be wary of the expectation of even an announcement in 2012. Logically, it’s still too soon.

Tail-heavy

The console business is tail-heavy. In theory, platform holders subsidise hardware in the early part of its cycle before hitting break-even and moving into profit as components cheapen. This back half of a console’s life-span couples with high software sales and, hopefully, everyone involved makes their money back plus a great deal more.

At the moment, both Xbox 360 and PS3 are in the back-half of their extended cycles, which is exactly where Sony and Microsoft want to keep them for as long as they possibly can. These are the gravy years. The console business’s golden rule? Don’t piss in the gravy.

To get an idea of what can happen when you announce a new console before its predecessor has started to properly decline, take a look at the switch-over between Xbox and Xbox 360. Xbox was always designed to make a loss. It was a base investment by Microsoft, a multi-billion dollar risk to gain a foothold in Sony’s market. Microsoft went into reveal mode at E3 2005, pushed out Xbox 360 while the Xbox business was still active and essentially killed the former. This was a process by design to get a jump on PS3, but it illustrates just how severely a step forward can impact an existing console business. The chances of Microsoft making a serious announcement of a new console – as in unveiling anything at its E3 press conference – unless it were readying a release in the following months are slim. Yes, figures are down overall, but 360 itself is still very strong. Given the current vigour of Xbox 360 software sales and the cheapness of the hardware, it seems unlikely Microsoft is ready to move on.

And then there’s Sony. The idea that Sony would announce PS4 at E3 this year is even more of a stretch. PS3 released a year after Xbox 360 in late 2006. It’s been on the Japanese market for five years. It’s not even five years old in Europe. PlayStation 3 was an enormous investment for Sony, and the inclusion of Blu-ray was instrumental in costing the company billions in losses. Sony pulled its “game” division into “networked products and services” to mask the true extent of PS3′s cost at the start of fiscal 2010, but whatever the truth about the figures at this point, the notion of PlayStation 4 being announced this year seems odd, to put it politely. There’s risk and there’s risk.

Remember this: nine times out of ten, the announcement you’re expecting isn’t going to happen. Unless there’s a great deal of noise, leaks on the major blogs, claims of hardware specs and case designs, unequivocal headlines claiming that such-and-such a console is going to be announced at such-and-such a show, the truth is that the rumour you’re so desperate to believe may simply amount to nothing.

More likely is that Microsoft would be readying to release at the end of 2013, which means we could to see a public launch at E3 next year. I’m basing this on logic. No one has told me whether or not Microsoft is going to announce anything, anywhere, at any time. I had conversations with developers last summer in which it was made clear that work was underway on third-party software tech and games for the next Microsoft box. This really was the first I’d heard of it, even off the record. Going on experience, that says to me we were about two years out at that point. Which points me at Christmas next year.

Remember this: nine times out of ten, the announcement you’re expecting isn’t going to happen. Unless there’s a great deal of noise, leaks on the major blogs, claims of hardware specs and case designs, unequivocal headlines claiming that such-and-such a console is going to be announced at such-and-such a show, the truth is that the rumour you’re so desperate to believe may simply amount to nothing. Cast your mind back to the announcements of Vita, PSPgo and PS3 Slim: the internet was covered with them for months before they were shown. This stuff leaks when it gets into the hands of third-parties. This is why Nintendo was forced to officially announce the Wii U reveal some three months before it happened at E3 last year: top brass knew it was going to leak and they had to stop it. We published the first images of “PSP 2″ in November 2010, three months before its reveal at a press conference in Japan, eight months before proper details at E3, over a year before it released in Japan, and 15 months before its western release. We were getting proper tech details as early as May 2010, eight months before Sony even showed the machine.

That’s almost two full years before western launch.

And before you start, I’m not saying “we’ve heard nothing so it isn’t true”. We’re not the font of all secret gaming knowledge, and, obviously, we get stuff wrong. I’m saying the new machines are almost certainly far too early for this type of coverage to begin in earnest. That said, Sony and Microsoft probably will talk about them in seriousness to the “lesser” third-parties behind closed doors this year. If that happens, you’ll hear about it soon enough. And the boxes may yet be “shown” at E3 2012, as MCV said this week. Maybe the story’s right. There’s no science to any of this. Sometimes you can apply all the logic you like to the games business and end up truly surprised. That’s one of the amazing things about it.

But I am saying I believe it’s highly unlikely you’ll be seeing Microsoft make a full reveal of its next-gen console at E3 this year. You may want to temper your excitement for a little while yet.

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38 Comments

I wasn’t expecting anything, after Michael Pachter explained on GTTV the past Thursday that he was aware that none of the Xbox Team you’d expect to be present at CES if they were to make such an announcement were going to be.

“the truth is that the rumour you’re so desperate to believe may simply amount to nothing.”

All right, then. If you’re Microsoft and at E3, for the press conference people anticipate new hardware, and that doesn’t happen, how do you convince somebody to buy in to a machine, that next year is likely to be superceded, and will surely not be the immediate focus, anymore…How do they not have people leave that E3 disappointed?

Interesting perspective, but surely the simple fact that, as you stated, we see hardware a good 18 months – 2 years before release, even a reveal at this year’s E3 wouldn’t see a probable release until end of 2013, or even 2014.

Given that we’re hitting the peak of the current consoles already, that’s a long way away. It would also lead to an 8 or even 9 year gap since the 360s launch – a VERY long time in the tech world.

Yes the 360 and PS3 may be doing very well right now, but if their successors don’t come out for another two years, they could be dwindling by that point. I’d be very surprised if we don’t see something this year.

Things definitely do leak out in this industry but there is still hope that sometimes a secret can be kept and that it makes for a nice surprise. Case in point was Naughty Dog’s announcement of their second team and new IP ‘The Last of Us’.
I’m not saying that both MS and Sony have become masters of keeping secrets but they must be getting better at it….

I kind of get the feeling that they might try to reveal just enough info to try to get people to not get on board Wii U and wait for PS4/xbox 3, while at the same time keeping enough under the belt to avoid driving their existing console sales down.

Maybe they could reveal it and say Christmas 2013. Would that work? Keep buying now, and get ready to get on board next year mo-fos… I dunno, I don’t understand business at all, so I should keep my breath to cool my porridge I guess.

To be really honest, i don’t know what the future for MS is gonna look like. The Xbox 360 has been turned into a fucking entertainment center and all MS seems to care about is Cunt-nect, getting so tired of that. They really don’t care for getting a new IP or two, as for games they simply rely on Halo like a madman.

Yesterday was horible, a horrible presentation. Ryan Seacrest obviously didn’t give a shit about what Steve Balmer was saying, you could see that. Horrible all around. This E3 for MS? More Kinect stuff like the Fable game, Star Wars game and maybe Ryse. Casual Kinect crap, and non-gaming stuff…there’s MS’ E3 for you, mark my words.

But if you look at the big picture, just like this well written article describes. A new console is not needed for MS. Sony is not in a hurry, Nintendo is not really a huge threat i think, Kinect is doing ridiculously well, was shocked by those numbers, wtf man. And 360 is doing well too. Why bring a new console?

Some people just want new consoles for the sake of better graphics, i know a few of them. But are they forgetting the huge amount of promising multiplatform titles this year? There’s more than enough coming out for the consoles.

A reveal during E3 would be great though, if it only was to finally get rid of horrible child actors and stupid crap like their past two E3′s. The moment of ‘shock’ and ‘surprise’ i guess when they reveal their new system. But only that, i can wait for a new console without a problem, i’ll be managing quite well with the multiplats this year.

Predicting when the next generation will start is as easy as looking at the current price of the current generation of the platform. Right now the 360 costs $300. Perhaps this year, they might lower it to $250, which still leaves a lot of room to lower the price. In 2013, it could go to $200. In 2014 it could go to $150. Below $150 is a price where you’re just clearing inventory to make room for the next console. Therefore, the successor to the 360 will be released in 2014, you can bet on it. The ps4 will be released in 2014 or 2015 depending on if Sony learned their lesson(s) on how to be competitive with MS. If only the enthusiast press would learn this simple way to predict system releases, then a lot time hype up something that ain’t going to happen could be avoided.

I think maybe they just will announce it just to take some of the wii U momentum, but it wouldnt be in playable form for sure, now i think nintendo will have hands-on, on the console just like the wii in 2006, just to give the gamers a glimpse of what this console is, and if the leaked specs are true, 50% more powerfull than the 360/ps3, then i think the Wii U will do just fine as the Wii, and also because i think the ps4/xbox360 will not be 100% more powerfull than the previous machines, therefore the graphical gap between the Wii U and th ps4/720, wouldnt be that big as this gen, and if you add the possiblity of the new controller, again i think the Wii U it will do just fine.

Having said that i dont mind a new generation, even if its start this year with the Wii U iam ok with that, and hopefully it will fulfill with the ps4 and 720 afterthat, this year i have to spend some money on vita and the Wii U, i hope the ps4 and 720 will come next year, because i will be in a pretty bad shape if i have to buy 4 new consoles this year, with a lot of this year great games, i have my hands full T_T.

I dont see the rush for a new gen machine, maybe more disc space since more and more games are being split on two discs or they just put it as DLC. Not too bothered by better graphics. Got enough games to try and finish, could do with winning the lotto so i can spend more time gaming.

“Gotta laugh at guys who think people will be jumping onto the WiiU platform though… I just can’t imagine serious 360/PS3 heads going “man I’m so tired of this gen, I’m off to play Mario… In HD!”

I think that is a wrong assumption, i mean that any serious gamer would not play nintendo games, like casual gamers and/or nintendo gamers will not play ps3 and 360 games, i think a serious gamer will play anything that is videogames related, also like the casual or nintendo gamer eventually they evolve and mature, therefore all gamers start like casual and then they became serious, really thats the thing we need in our hobby, separete ourselves,and keep calling names between us, we all love games in the end and contribute to this industry in different ways, i dont urdenstand it really but maybe is the human nature, but i dont see this kind of behaviour in the anime fans or heavy metal fans,though, so maybe is something akin to the videogames fan, i think this mentality harm us most than help us, but to each their own.

I am a serious 360 and sometimes PS3 head. But there’s also a hardcore Ninty fan in me, for me it all started with the SNES, in terms of consoles. And i always love me some new Mario game , Zelda, Donkey Kong or Metroid. I also really hope Nintendo will start paying attention to the non-casual gamers now too, and not just only have third party multiplatform games on it but also third party exclusives. Then i will consider getting a Wii U.

But then again, let’s just say they would release the Wii U with Zelda as a launch game, the Zelda we saw last year at E3. Call me crazy, but i’d get a Wii U for that alone. I really hope Wii U can succeed, and last i heard was that the Wii U would be very similar/on par with the current consoles. I didn’t read about it being 50% stronger. Would be great though.

And yeah, at the end of the day we are all gamers, and that comment about how he doesn’t see a serious 360/PS3 gamer playing mario, is the biggest nonsense i’ve heard in a while.

#16 Yes indeed, we need the Germayoni watch, you know the one to travel trough time, in order to play all that many great games, and this year is even crazier 8D

#18 Can i tell you that if JRPGS are your thing, and if xenoblade will come to the Wii U as some rumours are indicating, get the WiiU alone for Xenoblade, it is a masterpiece in the JRPG department, it is standing tall in my eyes alongside with FF VII and crhono triger as the best RPGS of all time, is that good, and if it doenst, well get a cheaper wii, just for this game is worth the 150$ price tag of a wii.
p.s and i know is unbelievable but it has nice graphics with the composite cables, sometimes i wonder how the wii did handle those graphics

I have a Wii but i’ve also yet to finish Zelda and Mario Galaxy 2, and as for 360 and PS3, plenty of games to finish as well. I’ve been on the lookout for Xenoblade though, heard so many good things about it, and best of all..it has realtime combat. I love a great JRPG but i am not a big fan of turnbased combat…so this should be right up my alley :).

If they really bring Xenoblade to Wii U with seriously improved visuals, i’ll get it for sure. Me buying a Wii U depends on several things :

1- The price of the system
2- Will MS announce a new console and price and release date? If so…i’ll probably begin saving money for that. But i doubt this very much.

3- Its launch games, please DO NOT have a Wii launch or 3DS launch. That was horrible.

#21 i agree the price must be right, i just hope they realize the mistake they did with the 3DS and will not make it again with the Wii U, and i hope all the manufacturers did learn too, keep it affordable with a good punch of tech under the hood, that and true 1080 p at +60 hz, i dont ask for more really for the next gen, anything more it will be a win in my eyes.

As for the games i am not sure, but i think it will be good at least on the third party, hey maybe pikmin 3 as launch tittle

#23 Ah ok i got it, sorry i understood the other way around, really is true what you said, but i think a serious gamer could invest on Wii U if there is something appealing to each particular tastes, and if the graphics thing is true more the reason to invest, that and a resonable price point, but we need to wait in order to see what Wii U really offers, sorry for the missunderstanding.

Well i hope we’ll get more than just those Nintendo games. I hope third parties will seriously bring some great exclusives to it. The first one is that Creatures from outer space game from Ubisoft, not sure if i got the title right, but that is an exclusive. Pikmin 3 is not enough for me, not at all. I want more :). Otherwise no buy from me right away, definitely not.

I am one of those people that will preorder a WiiU. Everyone likes to talk about inovative games, yet all we seem to see is a focus on hardwares power. Power doesn’t = inovation. It doesn’t = fun.

OribitMonkey:

“I can’t wait for teh next gen! Then I can play all the same franchises, but wit better graphics!!”

Exactly.

What do some people actualy expect out of next gen consoles? I mean really? Pixar Studio level graphics? Those gamers will be sorely disapointed I think. Go look at a current gen decked out gaming PC, one of those really high powered duel video card jobies. Thats going to be next gen. The hardware bench marks are already likly being projected and set. Early dev kits are alos likly already into key hands.

New systems are going to be nice. Like a high end gaming rig. Your going to get smoother frame rates. Higher resolutions. Better draw in distances. Better sound output. Hardcore, high end gaming is nice, and almost always a step or three ahead of consoles. But the games still aren’t graphicly on par with anything from high end movie studios.

And again, that entire conversation is all about the way the games look. Graphics. Thats all. Call me crazy, but I am not disapointed with graphical looks of BF3 on my xb360.

Alot of talk goes into critizing MS for going beyond games. “They don’t care about gamers anymore”, some say. But I ask how far can games go? What is expected of games? Like OM said, same games, shinier graphics.

Game growth is limited by a number of factors, from lack of inovation, to dev time, investment cost, risk of failure, market trends. Most of it driven, and hindered by investment vs profits. if I were MS/Sony I wouldn’t go forward with new systems for another two or three years at least. New hardware costs a ton of money. And I believe there is very little room for imporvement over where things currently are situated at.

Thats why MS launched Kinect. It was ‘posed to be a new platform within the current system. I am not impressed either, the exicution doesn’t reach the promises made. Thus far most all of the games have very limiting gameplay, imo.

So yes, I have looked at what Nintendo is looking to do with its tablet based controler, and I am interested in trying it. Say what you want but Nintendo has two things going for it: game history(they are the only real games company still making hardware), and inovation. News ways to play old favs. Nintendo doesn’t inovate? What do you call the Sony Move? Sony trying to copy Nintendos lead…

It is what it is.

Nintendo will always have a place under my TV. I am not saying that I won’t get new systems from MS/Sony. Just saying that they are a ways off, and I am looking forward to getting my hands on WiiU.

Manu is toatily right, real gamers care more about games then brand names.

“@10
The WiiU is not the start of the next generation, it’s catching up to the current generation”.
Also i forgot to mention,in previous gens the less powerfull consoles dreamcast, ps2, ps1 all did launch prior to their competition, and with less graphics punch, and with the exception to the dreamcast, by the way great machine, all won their respective gen (the ps2 and ps1), and they were consider part of that gen, may i ask why not the wii, why is different?

“Nintendo doesn’t inovate? What do you call the Sony Move? Sony trying to copy Nintendos lead…”

Please, dawg. Y’know people were playing motion-controlled fitness games in the generation before the Wii ‘innovated’ it with a metric ton of marketing.

It’s astonishing how many things Nintendo ‘invented’ that had already been around for years. Nearly as astonishing as the ducking-and-diving technicalities people will make to dismiss the earlier existence of something to maintain the claim that Nintendo invented it. Analog control, anyone?

Why do I never see this pseudo-rational gibberish aimed the other way around. Something tells me you like Sony, abbreviating one.

Besides, #26 is right on. By your logic there’s no such thing as innovation, since nothing ever existed in a vacuum.

Oh, and always having a good laugh at people thinking ‘marketing’ had anything to do with the Wii’s success. While you’re here fighting the good fight against e-zealosy, those customers are probably happy enjoying their videogames.

#28 yes is true about the analog control is not from nintendo, nintendo did enhace it and made more appealing with the cross configuration that it is even used today, but the The thing is that nintendo innovate things that were invented by others, and they succeed with this innovetions, and they way the apply those innovations to alter gameplay mechanics, while the others failed, the ones that originally created those said devices, you know more often than not innovation is also as important as creation, maybe thats why some times theres a little confusion of reallys whos first instead of missinformation.

But theres also other things they did created, based on existent devices, but taking it to the next level and succeed with it, like the first 360° degree movement thumb joystiq,of course joystiqs did existed since atari and the vertex, but no like the N64 controller with 360° of movement, the rumble pack, the dual screens one with a touch screen, the motion controller with gyroscope on two controllers at the same time, etc.The thing is, and is what i do understand from OG comments, is that nintendo takes risk with this innovations or creations, or whatever is called, and they succeed, while others doesnt go all in with this innovations, the wii was put on the line only on the success of the motion controllers, the wii live or die by this alone, i mean in the adoption an acceptance by consumer on motion controlls, that was a risky move based on this, the DS with the dual screen and touch screen was also a bold move and a risky one too, again with the N64 they manipulate 3D movement on 3D graphics with a thumb joystiq, can we say the same about the others that have a unique feature on a device and depend solely on that feature to succeed, innovated or created, i thinks theres not that many examples not as with nintendo, sometimes they failed and sometimes they succeed, and theres the thing i suppose.

P.S by the way, and this is something i been poundering from sometime, and dont take me wrong or took it as a bad thing,which really it doesnt is, the thing is that i just want to know becuase sometimes things go fly over my head and i dont realize, Joe Mushashi are you Kerkplunk?

@29 – You don’t (or rarely) see it happening the other way because it’s typically the same company that people attempt to credit with the invention of/innovation of things. But, if you prefer you can look at it backwards and see it as unfair dismissal of innovation of one company as opposed to undeserving credit of it in the first place.

And true innovation is very very rare and frequently misunderstood. What you typically see is revision and refinement – excitedly but incorrectly branded as invention or innovation.

As for marketing, you really should never dismiss the power of marketing to convince the collective. It works over and over and over because it doesn’t matter who shouts first, it matters who shouts loudest. Thats why there’s innovation happening years and years before any big bold company claims it as theirs.

It’s truly amazing to see the indoctrination of the gamer collective and their resistance to details that conflict with the history written by the marketers.

Either way, when you go about implying one company is copying another’s ideas, better make sure the company you champion isn’t a copycat also.

No, funnily enough that’s as much of a trite notion as it is a popular and a knee-jerk one. It matters who does it right, in most cases as a whole package. Yet you always get those freedom fighters crying about some unknown company as being the rightly creator of a user interface which was nothing but common sense anyway. Particularly when it comes to something as computer toys, I’m yet to see anything related to videogames which would strike me as something that could’ve never happened if it wasn’t for certain company.

Revisionism is part insecurity, part bitterness, and usually pretty desperate.

It doesn’t really matter who invents what, if they can’t bring it to people. You have at least four or five different multi-billion dollar companies, who had every opportunity to profit on motion controls, so why didn’t they?

Obviously Nintendo put one over on the pack this generation. The games are usually extremely limited, but the motion controls just got people hooked.

Whether it’s innovation is pretty irrelevant, not to mention fairly subjective. Things don’t need to be breakthroughs to be enjoyed, they just need to hit the spot.

Hey Moonwalker, relax dude…they have to promote Kinect for as long as it’s viable, and it’s not like they’ve stopped making core games…little kids like that shit and parents get their kids what they want…after all the video games industry is a business and people are in business to make money, so why not promote something that is making you plenty of money, and sold 18 million units in a year…it would be insane not to promote something like that…plus it was A LOT more successful than WiiHD aka PS Move…

And they haven’t left the core behind whatsoever, I have more games than I know what to do with and while most of them are third party titles on 360, what does that matter anyway…a good game is a good game, and MS is doing just fine…

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